still your honour better to secure,
          From slander’s tongue, and virtue to ensure,
          I’d have you to our country-house repair;
          The city quit:—­these sly gallants beware;
          Their presents too, accurst invention found,
          With danger fraught, and ever much renowned;
          For always in the world, where lovers move,
          These gifts the parent of assentment prove. 
          ’Gainst those declare at once; nor lend an ear
          To flattery, their cunning sister-peer. 
          If they approach, shut straight both ears and eyes;
          For nothing you shall want that wealth supplies;
          My store you may command; the key behold,
          Where I’ve deposited my notes and gold. 
          Receive my rents; expend whate’er you please;
          I’ll look for no accounts; live quite at ease;
          I shall be satisfied with what you do,
          If naught therein to raise a blush I view;
          You’ve full permission to amuse your mind;
          Your love, howe’er, for me alone’s designed;
          That, recollect, must be for my return,
          For which our bosoms will with ardour burn.

          Thegood man’s bounty seemingly was sweet;
          All pleasures, one excepted, she might greet;
          But that, alas! by bosoms unpossessed,
          No happiness arises from the rest: 
          His lady promised ev’ry thing required:—­
          Deaf, blind, and cruel,—­whosoe’er admired;
          And not a present would her hand receive
          At his return, he fully might believe,
          She would be found the same as when he went,
          Without gallant, or aught to discontent.

          Herhusband gone, she presently retired
          Where Anselm had so earnestly desired;
          The lovers came, but they were soon dismissed,
          And told, from visits they must all desist;
          Their assiduities were irksome grown,
          And she was weary of their lovesick tone. 
          Save one, they all were odious to the fair;
          A handsome youth, with smart engaging air;
          But whose attentions to the belle were vain;
          In spite of arts, his aim he could not gain;
          His name was Atis, known to love and arms,
          Who grudged no pains, could he possess her charms. 
          Each wile he tried, and if he’d kept to sighs,
          No doubt the source is one that never dries;
          But often diff’rent with expense ’tis found;
          His wealth was wasted rapidly around
          He wretched grew; at length for debt he fled,
          And sought a desert to conceal his head. 
          As on the road he moved, a clown he met,
          Who with his stick an adder tried to get,
          From